I used Gengo to once translate a letter… I used Gengo to once translate a letter from Eng->Japanese that I wanted to send to my girlfriend's company about their poor COVID work-from-office rules. I received the translation in less than 24 hours and upon showing it to a JP friend they said it was mostly perfect. There are lots of negative reviews on this site, but this is my own experience

Bad for everyone Imagine that you're translating subtitles to a video, and the person speaking is stuttering, starting and ending a sentence, changing tense, etc. You translate it in line with the tone of the original translation, as well you should. Then the Gengo review comes in and marks your translation as "awkward". "Well, of course, it's awkward, because the original is awkward," you say. The Gengo support team dismisses you with a repetitive statement of, "As a translator, it's your job to make it not awkward." So, when the original is, "I...I mean...I don't know, I wasn't...I couldn't have...I'm not sure I..." according to Gengo, your translation should be: "I don't know." Anything else will be marked as "awkward". This is a terrible experience for a translator AND a bad result for the customer.

Don't trust them! I had a critical document that had one paragraph needing translation to Chinese. They said it would take between 2 - 5 hours, which was fine. At 4 hours I sent in a request to find the status and they told me that "hadn't found a translator yet." Are you kidding me?!!! Needless to say, I would not recommend this company to anyone.

Apparently, they hire unprofessional reviewers I'm a professional freelance translator, and taken their test just to see. They rejected my translation, and they just said that "I made too many errors" citing just one example. This example was not exactly an error, which just showed how illiterate and ignorant the "native" reviewer is about his (my) language. If they think they are hiring qualified translators this way, you can just guess the level of translation you will get. Don't waste money on them. If you think I'm just taking out on them for rejecting me, fine, please go on and waste your money and time.

Pre-tests are falsified... Just took the MCQ test to be approved as Translator (French to English). I have been reading, writing and speaking both languages for 35 yrs. And been doing professional technical translations for the past 10 years. I got only a 1 out of 5 correct... either i am completely inept or their tests are biased/ wrong.